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Helping gamers rage less and enjoy their games more.

The Batman Arkham Knight DLC isn’t evil

With the anticipation of a new and next-gen Batman title on the horizon the press about the DLC and season pass is already receiving criticism. Gamers are rightly apprehensive about extra content offerings with some titles failing to deliver, leaving many feeling their season passes attached them to a boring or broken game. In this case I think many might be too quick to jump on the hate train as we don’t have lots of detail, but what little we know sounds better than what other titles have done. Basically to sum it up you can pay $40 to get 6 months of content with new content delivered each month. First, I want to address what it starting to sound like entitlement creeping into DLC criticism.

You got the whole game, extra is extra

The thing many gamers need to realize is that you aren’t entitled to extra content just because you bought the full game. I feel like a lot of the criticism I’ve read recently about DLC comes from a place of, “I’m entitled to this extra content for almost no money because I bought the game for $60.” Now to a point, I understand and want to acknowledge there are some pretty frustrating DLC practices. I praised Mortal Kombat for allowing people try before they buy, but after watching Angry Joe’s review of the game, I have to say I’m pretty disappointed in the way they have monetized their content. So yes, there are games like Destiny or Mortal Kombat that slice out pieces of the game and try to sell it in ways that seem pretty suspect. But this doesn’t mean that every piece of DLC is owed to you at a dirt cheap price just because you bought a game at full price.

Trickle DLC is better

Another criticism that I found somewhat bewildering is that people don’t like the trickle DLC format of getting one of six pieces each month for six months. First, I understand this is a bit of marketing brilliance as they can extend player engagement with respect to Twitch streams and YouTube channels. And to a point, I don’t think they can be faulted for that. Leveraging the digital content creation and streaming avenues is a brilliant way to keep your game in front of people and stay relevant in a market that is filling up fast with next-gen games. Second, this is a better way to engage with content as you can complete the main game and all it’s challenges and achievements and then take a break to play other games. Then, when the first piece of DLC comes out you can play it with a fresh and new feeling instead of feeling like a mountain of content is dumped on you which can make it too daunting to complete or even play. This is somewhat in line with something I suggested in a previous post and video about spacing out content drops to allow for proper testing, adequate development, and extending engagement more like long TV show seasons.

It looks substantial

It should be pointed out that only one piece of this DLC is cosmetic, since many probably expected a lot of the extra content to just be a bunch of skins. First they are giving us an prequel story expansion in an entirely new location where we will be able to play as Batgirl. Second, they are adding all new story missions for Batman to fight against legendary villains who invade gotham with new stories, missions, and gameplay features. Third, you will be able to play as allies of Batman in story missions that will span events before and after Arkham Knight. Fourth, they are adding all of the classic Batmobiles to race on custom built race tracks. So you will be able to race any Batmobile from the 75 years of Batman’s history on tracks designed around themes from the eras the cars are from. Fifth, there will be crimefigher challenge maps that promise to utilize unique play styles of Batman and his allies. And lastly the character skins from all the eras of Batman, Robin, Nightwing, and Catwoman.

So even with the sparse details about the DLC it looks to be pretty stout and full for the $40. And if you take the 6 pieces and price it out, you are paying roughly $7 for each piece of the content. How is that a bad deal? For some perspective, Killer Instinct sells extra characters for $5. So you can get what amounts to extra stories, playable areas, missions, characters, skins, race tracks and cars, and challenges for roughly $2 more per piece that what it would cost you to buy one extra character for Killer Instinct. So let’s all chill and let the new content for Batman speak for itself as more details come out and as the content releases.